Hearing-impaired individuals may benefit from communication systems and devices configured to provide assistance in order to communicate with other individuals over a communication network. For example, captioning communication services have been established to provide assistive services (e.g., text captions) to the hearing-impaired user communicating with a communication device (e.g., caption phone, caption enabled device, etc.) that is specifically configured to communicate with the captioning communication service.
In particular, a captioning communication service may be a telecommunication assistive service, which is intended to permit a hearing-impaired person to utilize a communication network and assist their understanding of a conversation by providing text captions to supplement the voice conversation. The captioning communication service may include an operator, referred to as a “call assistant,” who serves as a human intermediary between the hearing-impaired user and a far-end user. During a captioning communication session, the call assistant may listen to the audio signal of a far-end user and “revoice” the words of the far-end user to a speech recognition computer program tuned to the voice of the call assistant. Text captions (also referred to as “captions”) may be generated by the speech recognition computer as a transcription of the audio signal of the far-end user, and then transmitted to the communication device being used by the hearing-impaired user. The communication device may then display the text captions while the hearing-impaired user carries on a normal conversation with the far-end user. The text captions may allow the hearing-impaired user to supplement the voice received from the far-end and confirm his or her understanding of the words spoken by the far-end user.
During a communication session, the communication device may experience echo (e.g., hybrid echo, acoustic echo, etc.). The term “hybrid echo” (also referred to as “electric echo”) describes a phenomenon in which a fraction of the signal leaving the phone is reflected by a hybrid circuit and returns into the near-end communication device. This is particularly prevalent in voice-band communication circuits where there are impedance imbalances in local two-wire to four-wire hybrid circuits are used. The effect of hybrid echo is that the near-end user hears their own utterances repeated back to them. Echo cancellation systems are conventionally employed within communication devices to cancel hybrid echo and/or acoustic echo.
The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one example technology area where some embodiments described herein may be practiced.